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Frustrated by political obstacles to their goals of economic world domination, a group of unscrupulous American industrial tycoons secretly finance a new political party, the American Freedom Party (AFP). They plan to use the AFP to subvert the Constitution and...(more) further their monopolistic national and global agendas. What they fail to realize is that John Gerard, their charismatic presidential candidate, plans to double-cross them and, like Hitler, become a dictator. These conspiratorial financiers create international economic and political crises that leave the Republican and Democratic parties hopelessly divided and ineffectual. With behind-the-scenes manipulations, AFP enables their candidate to resolve these crises and gain the support of the frightened citizens of the United States. Only two people can thwart these plots: Dr. Ritter, a psychologist who once treated the future presidential candidate, and Solomon Weissman, a muckraking journalist. During hypnosis sessions, the psychopathic Gerard unknowingly reveals his plans to Dr. Ritter. Meanwhile, Weissman penetrates the financiers' New Millennium Consortium and learns of their plans. In his climb to power, Gerard arranges for the disappearance of his opponents and those familiar with his past. But the one adversary he doesn't anticipate is the only man who knows the secret behind the hobgoblin nightmares that haunt both Dr. Ritter and himself. Paranoia and politics intertwine in this perceptive...thriller. At the center of the narrative are Martin Ritter, a hot-shot psychology student plagued by hidden insecurities, and his patient John Gerard, who rants under hypnosis about his plan to impose a fascist regime on America. Dr. Jaffe, a psychology professor, draws a sharply observed, often hilarious portrait of clinical psychology, as Martin and his colleagues jockey for status, subtly manipulate patients and wrestle with their own issues. The story is, at one level, a deftly fictionalized debate between psychoanalysis and cognitive therapy. Martin is an unusual and appealing hero for a political thriller. Outwardly deploying the therapist's earnest, rationalistic aplomb, inwardly bubbling with neurotic self-consciousness, he seems like Woody Allen stuck in a remake of The Manchurian Candidate. -Kirkus Discoveries(less)